Twitter Lists – What are they and why should you use them

Are you using twitter, have more than 100 (yes, just one hundred) followers and not using twitter lists? Oh my goodness! You are really missing out on the important tweets and engaging with the right audience.

As you gain more followers on Twitter, your timeline becomes so busy that sometimes it is difficult to spot the tweets from the people you really want to engage and have conversations with.

A Twitter list is nothing more than a list of Twitter users. These lists can be surprisingly useful. These are curated groups of Twitter users that allow you to efficiently organise your users in various groups and to better manage your tweets.

Any Twitter user can create lists and add Twitter accounts that tweet publicly to it. Each Twitter user can set up to 1000 lists (public or private) and add up to 5000 users to each list.

Why would you use lists and whattypes oflists can you create?

If you are fairly active on Twitter, then you may have noticed that it does get busy and sometimes you may miss out on the tweets you really want to see. By creating these lists, you can ensure that you do not miss on the important updates and can engage better with the people you choose to build relationships with.

Twitter lists can either be public or private. Anyone can see your public lists and when you add users to the list they will get a notification of the same. Private lists are only visible to you and users added will not get a notification for this. You do not need to follow twitter accounts to add them to the lists so you can have a list of twitter account you want to watch but do not want to follow them individually.

There are some public lists created by others that you may be interested in following and all you need to do is subscribe to that list. These lists include lists such as current news – lists of most news channels, local news for an example, the twitter accounts talking about what is happening in your local area / community. Why not leverage off the work done by others who have created these lists just follow them.

For business owners, if you would like to follow your customers / clients so that you can see and respond to their tweets in a timely manner then create a private list of these users. Maybe you want to follow those who are already in contact with your potential customers, providing products or services to them. Why not create a list of these twitter users so that you can see who they engage with and how you can work with them for mutual benefit. Initially, you may want to make these private as well as those of your competitors so you can follow what kind of updates they share.

Charities can also create lists of their supporters, volunteer and donors. This way you can re-share any relevant information they put on twitter, thank your support and donors.

Go ahead and use your account to its fullest by creating the lists that will be most useful to you and your brand. Remember to follow other public lists which may be useful. If you would like to get the most out of your twitter engagement and strategy then get in touch with us. Follow us on twitter – @Dipakotak